Chinese classical music concert on 11th

Islamabad: The Chinese Embassy, China Cultural Centre and Innovations in Culture and Creativity in Europe will hold a concert of Chinese classical music here at the Pakistan National Council of Arts on May 11.

During the event titled 'Moonlight Over the Spring River', the artists of China Opera and Dance-Drama Theatre will perform. The 'Spring Moonlight on the Flowers by the River' is one of the most famous Chinese traditional music works. It had been popular among ordinary people before 1875 and has become one of the masterpieces in the treasury of Chinese classical music.

It was originally named as Pipa tune Flutes and Drums at Dusk, and was adapted by Liu Yaozhang, a member of Shanghai's Datong Music Conservatory and renamed as Spring Moonlight on the Flowers by the River by Zheng Jinwen in 1930.

Since 1949, it has undergone many revisions, until now it is a highly polished piece. The intro has a background of musical harmony, and then a pipa is plunked faster and faster, giving out drumbeat-like notes.

At the same time, deft fingering on a vertical bamboo flute produces the melody. The contrast between the two instruments - one producing pellet-like short notes by twanging, and the other producing long-drawn-out notes - conjures up a picture of a river in springtime.

The technique, often used in folk music, of phrases repeated over and over, and seemingly chasing one another, gives a vivid impression of ripples on water. The understated melody, fluid rhythmical meter, the ingenious subtlety, together with random orchestration, combine to paint a tranquil scene of a river on a moonlit night in spring, and is paean of praise to the countryside south of Yangtze River. The whole work is divided into ten sections, each having a different title.